OMG. SO I had a oil change done today. I always watch the oil pressure gauge. So I noticed while stopped after the oil change, that oil pressure dipped to just above 1. Not normal as it's always 1.75. So I watched it closely.

Drove to my parents about 30KM away and watched the pressure like a hawk, pegged while driving but when stopped again, fell to just 1 and not below. Gave it a little gas to it rose to 1.5.

Parked, took oil filter apart, oil leaked out immediately as soon as I undid the bolts (they were over tightened), seemed to be very high pressure. Thought this was very odd. Took the oil filter out and saw the oil filter oring, from the previous filter that goes at the very top of the oil filter, in the oil intake area . Oil can still go through but it's slightly restricted. So they put the oil filter over this oil rubber oring, that's supposed to be on the top of the oil drain area that goes to the bearings, and this was semi restricting the oil!

I'm panicking pretty bad right now. I took the oil cap off when the car is running and I saw a semi, slight, little bit of steam. I've never seen steam before. The oil cap does not move at all and the steam is barely visible but I swear it didn't have it before. Did I do engine damage? Should I seek a good used/engine? UGH.

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1976 Mercedes 240D (Sold)
1985 Mercedes 300D Turbo Diesel: 500,000KM
1986 Mercedes 300E (Sold)
1988 Mercedes 300E (Sold)
2002 Mercedes C240 (Sold)
2008 Mercedes C350 4matic

A great site for purchasing industrial rubber products!

Industrial Rubber

The official mercedes minimum spec for oil pressure I believe if 3bar by 3000RPM for the om617. As you never dropped below 1.5 at idle, and had pressure while touching the accelerator, I'd say your probably fine.

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2004 F150 4.6L -My Daily
2007 Volvo XC70 -Wife's Daily
1998 Ford F150 -Rear ended
1989 J-spec 420SEL -passed onto its new keeper
1982 BMW 733i -fixed and traded for the 420SEL
2003 Volvo V70 5 Speed -scrapped
1997 E290 Turbo Diesel Wagon -traded for above
1992 BMW 525i -traded in
1990 Silver 300TE -hated the M103
1985 Grey 380SE Diesel Conversion, 2.47 rear end, ABS -Sold, really should have kept this one
1979 Silver 300D "The Silver Slug" -Sold

I got a MityVac oil extractor which now makes my oil changes a lot easier. No getting underneath the car anymore. Just suck the stuff out directly from the oil dipstick and when empty, refill with new. Putting on a new filter is no big deal. DO make sure you get a QUALITY brand. I use MANN filters. Do NOT get the cheap look-a-likes from China.

Do it yourself because it's not hard, saves you money, and you'll know it's done right (if you didn't screw it up!).

What engine are you talking about? Why did you keep driving it when pressure was obviously too low?

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

Om617, 1985 Mercedes 300D. It wasn’t bad, it was just slightly lower at idle. Like 0.3 bar lol. While driving it was capped.

Now you know why a lot of us do our own oil changes. The job requirement to work at an oil change place is to have a pulse, beyond that any additional skills are superfluous. Having lost TWO oil drain plugs from not having them tightened and a major oil leak from a filter being double gasketed, I've changed my own oil for 20 years and refuse to let anyone else do it.

Since you had oil pressure, and you had adequate oil pressure when the RPM was raised, I doubt you did any major damage if any damage at all.

Seeing smoke/steam in the valve cover is normal. I'd be more concerned if there was none when the engine is fully up to temp. When you worry is when it starts blowing out the filler cap when you remove the cap.

Fix the filter, top off the oil level, and drive on knowing you have a well-made car.

Also learn to change your own oil. It's cheaper and you don't have to worry about someone with the IQ of a jellyfish working on something that can wreck your engine in seconds if they do it wrong. You have 100% control of what goes in your engine, what filters you use, and how the process is done. If you're meticulous in your process, you'll never have a problem and you can sleep easy at night knowing the job was done properly.

__________________
Current stable:
1995 E320 157K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 125K (SLoL)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

Gone and wanting to forget:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™) [Definitely NOT a Benz]

If the problem continues find out what weight oil they used...it may be getting another oil change VERY soon!

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"Rudeness is a weak man's imitation of strength" - Eric Hoffer

Agreed! If it is not Diesel rated, it is the wrong oil. Be sure to check that before driving it too much. Sometimes those oil change places will just put in the weight for the season, and not care (or know) if the oil is Diesel rated. Again, another reason to do your own oil changes.

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All Diesel Fleet
1985 R107 300SLD TURBODIESEL
2005 E320 CDI (daily)

LOTS of parts for sale!


EGR block kit
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/355250-sale-egr-delete-block-off-plate-kit.html

1985 CA emissions 617 owners- You Need This!
Sanden style A/C Compressor Mounting Kit for your 616/ 617 For Sale + Install Inst.

Sanden Instalation Guide (post 11):
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/367883-sanden-retrofit-installation-guide.html

15w40. How do you miss a piece of rubber in the housing? What a ****ing idiot.grr.

So you guys think no engine damage?

What weight of oil did they use and what was in the engine before? Thinner oil will result in lower oil pressure.


For any oil filter I've dealt with, oil flows from the outside of the filter element and exits through the center tube. I'd expect MB to follow this convention. If this is different, someone please post a cut away of the canister / element.

Are you speaking of a sub 1" o ring / seal? At idle, oil flow is low and increases with engine speed so any restriction would be evident at speed not idle. If you had good oil pressure at speed, there was not any restriction.

There is no way piston rings ( that control blow by to the crankcase ) would be damaged this rapidly even if you drove with zero oil.

Don't let blind panic drive you to a rash decision, restack the o rings and drive on.

Ive calmed down. There’s no damage. It was just 1.2 at idle instead of 1.75.

It was diesel rated 15w40 quality oil. There’s a oring on top of the oil filter at the very top of the filter. The tech out this ****ing oring on the intake tube at the bottom of the oil filter housing.

This restricted oil flow by .3-.5 at idle. Bringing oil flow to 1.1-1.2 at idle. So stupid. So stupid. I’m doing all future oil changes.

Once I removed this oring, the oil pressure went to 1.75 again. All things went back to normal once removed. I just noticed a small bit of myst when I removed oil filler cap. Almost nothing but still noticeable if focusing. It’s just me over thinking the situation. The oil filler cap won’t even move on it when running.

Does this canister have an internal drain at the bottom? RE: When the filter is removed a valve opens at the bottom to let the oil out.

Given the pressure went up once the extra ring was removed, I'd think the chain of events was:

Left over center o ring / grommet kept the filter from fully seating in the canister.

Drain valve at bottom of canister was partially open allowing some oil to flow back into the oil pan.

In any event, as I stated before, oil volume is low at idle and high at speed. As long as you had oil pressure at speed there was not a flow restriction. This engine should follow the convention of oil pressure sensor after the filter so any filter canister restriction would show up as low pressure at speed.

Given the oil pressure was only slightly low, there was zero chance of any damage.

The only place blow by comes from is piston rings, the is absolutely no way they were damaged. I've rebuilt / repaired countless engines across my 40+ years in and around the auto repair business and have seen lots of failing / failed engines. No damage was done to your engine.

As for the oil change place, this is an example of why having a regular general repair shop is an advantage. A regular shop would likely have more experienced techs to catch something like this.

Also, there are many on this list that degrade mechanics. What would compel an intelligent skilled person to become a mechanic knowing they will be degraded? As a result, fewer and fewer people with the brain power to do this kind of work get into the field.

There is a reason why it is difficult to find a good shop and even worse, this is self inflicted by those that degrade mechanics.

Ok I’m following what happened now. The “grommet” is the seal on top of the filter element. It probably fell off the old filter.

Was it on the shaft up top, bottom or just swimming around in the housing?

As SL320 says it probably just kept your element from seating. No worries. I’m not even sure why this would cause low pressure at the gauge but perhaps the stem on the filter cap couldn’t be seated properly at the bottom and the two little orings that have something to do with the pressure gauge circuit weren’t seated properly below because of the grommets extra clearance.

Hey, drive on and enjoy that car.

Yep, SL320 your comments about techs are humbling. I can get pretty frustrated with the pros I’ve had to clean up after...or hear about how they over serviced my friends. But, admittedly it is a business and they have to pay their rent. One of the best techs I knew went bankrupt because he was super honest and super talented...he insisted on doing repairs like “hey, I just needed to reconnect this wire - no charge, hey it just needed some electrical tape here to stop this intermittent short - no charge, hey, you really didn’t need a new support, I just MIG welded the crack and it’s good as new- no charge.” He kept saying I’ll get you next time and he said he’d never see them again. He went bankrupt. And he went back to the mega shop where the owner forced his guys to over repair clients to maximize profits.

It is a tough business. I think it was somebody here who explained all the extra services brake shops do are half for $$ and half to make sure the customer doesn’t come back saying his brakes make a funny squeal. What can you do right? It isn’t as clear cut as us being sole controllers of our cars and our shop.

I love working on cars but I don’t think I’d like to run a business doing it for others. Totally different.

With all that said, learn how to change your own oil for goodness sakes. Having an Indy maintain one of these old diesels for you will get very expensive very fast. It isn’t a requirement of ownership to wrench, but it makes ownership a lot easier in many ways.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles

You like to bang on about people putting down mechanics don't you. It seems to be in just about every post you make. The point here isn't who has the best mechanic, if you can find a good mechanic, HANG ON FOR DEAR LIFE because they're more difficult to find than unicorns. For every good one out there, there's probably 25 that aren't. Most of these places today plug in a scan tool and replace what the computer tells them, even if it isn't the problem. No computer or pre-OBDII? You're above their pay grade. The ability to troubleshoot and the effort to correctly diagnose and correct faults seems to have been lost. When you do find a good shop, they're expensive but worth every penny you pay. They'll do the job right the FIRST time, and if not, they'll make it right.

In this case though, this is an oil change issue, one of the most basic maintenance procedures you can do. Changing oil on a vehicle isn't any more difficult than topping up the wiper fluid reservoir or checking the tire air pressure. If changing the oil is something you just can't do, please don't own a car.

__________________
Current stable:
1995 E320 157K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 125K (SLoL)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

Gone and wanting to forget:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™) [Definitely NOT a Benz]